It Never Ends

The day so far: still searching for that epic.
Seafaring? Great mystery of the shadowy deep?
Cataclysm? The earth opening beneath my feet?

No, just the measured stillness that slides
out of my pencil one word at a time.
The vision of my old friend, fresh from cataract surgery,

saying he can once again enjoy looking
at the stars, “connecting the dots.”
A modest return to wonder, the windows washed,

the old universe swimming into view,
a moment of darkness and silence and the awe
of retracing an old riddle, finding north,

How

I do not know how it is possible
not to pause, to stop, to listen
when a single bird’s first notes
suddenly rise above the subtle hum
of the city’s opening or to ignore
the wonder when one spring day
descends unexpectedly to revive
this town in the midst of winter.
I do not know how to sing praises
as wholeheartedly as the throng
of crows gathered at the crown
of a leaf-barren tree whose cants
seem like cacophony to me
but must be the joyful noises
that they were made to sing.

I do not know how.

Mauve

Once only I use this word –
as winter white cedes
its clutch on deepest cold
to end-of-day, sun down
low with bare trees
that hold up clouds.

Winter Undertow

Round fire in its tent of sticks shedding chalk and cold
on the edging of my pillow.

So sad. All I can recall is no one to hold me.

After all my skin-chafing labor with the adze, the struggle
to haul your coffin across the river—

cracking and lowing like a barge
in the deep, bleeding furrow
closing in on itself—

your severed arm gone ghostly limp,
flailing like a wave crest along the bank

beneath the claxons of a migrating goose flock
beneath blurrier migrating stars.

The Girl Who Wanted Soup

She rose at 3:15 from her plastic chair,
the wooden desk carved with curses.
Her bones began to sing.
She ran home to unwed shoes,
lost socks, and blue shadows,
chores to complete until dark,
criticism swallowed like bites of tough meat.

She focused on the bright stars,
the winter air, crisp as a white shirt,
and soup.

Breakfast Club

Orion’s slow tumble from winter’s black
announces our day’s sunup meal, the birds and me;
finches are first to pick-peck fall’s bounty.
Sagging branched apples offer their exposed flanks
to the songbirds’ mixed tape this December morn’.
Flap-flitting from appled branch to next sweet tidbit.
A furtive dance of
jab, glance, nibble, glimpse.

headlights

black patches curving slick
the moon
extraordinary in its bloom
lights last flecks of
webbed snow

two by two geese
flee into darkness
tracks melting under toe

I’ll meet you here, tomorrow
Jack says

as Seven Sister skate the sky
moon raining crystals.

Pandora’s Moon

Let’s forget the echoes
of my thirtieth year
for there’s refuge
in the night and the moon.

Moonlit night
where imagination stretches starward.
Moonlit night
where my name falls off like an autumn leaf.
Moonlit night
where I’m a sapling attune to winter wind.
Moonlit night
where my past hibernates, ant-sized.

Red Chimney

I wonder who lives in the house
With the bright red chimney, someone must
For on cold winter mornings
Smoke bellows from the stack
And the smell of freshly baked bread
Stops me in the thaw and snap
So, I linger for a moment
And stare at this dreamy abode
Lit by the soft edges of snow clouds
And the sun a pale embroidered gold
‘All is well with the world’ then I say to myself
All is well in the house with the red chimney

For the Young Who Are Afraid

This rain pounds the arch hall with a glass roof, vexations of puddles over and above the axles, no time to witness how slowly the tulip emerges in curled lips like cups. Chills of wet hair.

Visitant

Literary pilgrims welcome

winter